On 22 February, two young jihadi fighters who reportedly fought for Islamic State (ISIS) were arrested in Ajdabiya by a group calling itself the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Brigade. They had escaped the Libyan National Army (LNA) siege in Benghazi. One of the men was Mohamed Mustafa al-Mugharbi (aka Randa al-Abed), a high-profile fighter for ISIS in Benghazi’s central Sabri district. On 24 February, Tariq Ibn Ziyad Brigade released a video showing the execution of al-Mugharbi in Ajdabiya. The group is said to be a Madakhli Salafist unit operating under the command of the LNA.
Al-Mugharbi was reportedly connected with the gruesome execution of an LNA soldier, the video of which was recently published on Libyan social media. The other fighter was a young man from Tripoli called Jasem al-Kikli. A third man from Ajdabiya was also arrested on the grounds of providing safe passage to terrorists.